Say no to bottled water

[brimstoneSalad]

Wow brimstone, I really am intrigued with your knowledge now for some reason... What you are saying is starting to make some sense to me...

I'm relieved. You might not be hopeless after all

Can we start a hang man sesession or something until I get it...?

The fish hint will give it away easily.

Read up on why fish have high levels of mercury. Of course, this is an element, so the fish couldn't possibly produce mercury- so where is it coming from, and how is it getting in the fish? And why is fish dangerous, when seaweed is harmless, despite coming from the same environment?

There are some e-how articles, and things like that on it, if you don't want anything too wordy.

http://www.ehow.com/about_7232531_fish- ... cury_.html

That one contains the key word, and explains a bit of how it works.

It's the single most important concept in biochemistry to understand in order to be healthy and avoid dangerous toxicants, and the toxic effects of them on your body.

It's all about context.


In the right context, I could say abrasion from clothing is more damaging than being hit by a car (a car of the equivalent mass to all of the clothing you would wear in your lifetime).
And I would be right- it IS more "damaging" - but that's also deceptive.

Clothing does its damage very very slowly, as we are exposed to clothing abrasion gradually over a lifetime, and our skin recovers from it faster than it happens (you actually lose a lot of skin to your clothing, but it grows back faster than your clothing removes it, which makes it harmless in practice).

If we were exposed to a lifetime of clothing abrasion in the same period of time it takes to be hit by a car (a fraction of a second), it would probably tear our skin, fat, and muscle off and kill us instantly. It wouldn't be a pleasant sight.

But that's just not how it works in reality.

Things can be equally "damaging", or equally "toxic" in one sense, but in reality have very different levels of actual danger due to how we are exposed, and how our bodies respond to that exposure.

Fluorine may be more "toxic" than lead, in the right context, just as clothing is more "damaging" than being hit by a car- but to say that is deceptive, and gives the wrong impression of the level of danger the two things pose.

Clothing (at the levels we are exposed to) is not dangerous, being hit by a car is. Fluorine (at the levels we are exposed to) is not dangerous, being exposed to lead is.

[PrincessPeach]

Very interesting and I do believe I figured your puzzle out, bioaccumulation!

[brimstoneSalad]

Very interesting and I do believe I figured your puzzle out, bioaccumulation!

Bingo!

It's one of the most fundamental reasons why meat is unhealthy- the animals people are eating have accumulated toxicants over their lives (the kind that stick around in the body, which stick around in our bodies too).
Although this applies less to animals that are very "low" on the food chain and that both don't live long or eat other animals, like insects, small shrimp and some small fish, etc.

The related concept, Biomagnification, explains this well:

http://mercurypolicy.scripts.mit.edu/bl ... raphic.jpg

If an animals lives for years, it accumulates more toxins- or if an animal eats other animals, it inherits all of the toxins that animal accumulated too.


Anyway, once you understand the differences in bioaccumulation of different toxicants, and how our bodies deal with them (or fail to deal with them), then you can have a much deeper understanding of why some things are dangerous, and others are not (despite what the LD50 may be).

I'll happily eat cyanide every day- just not enough to kill me- and my body gets rid of it like nothing ever happened. Some of my favorite snacks are fairly high in cyanide (almonds, yum!).

But lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and a few other heavy metals - watch out. Those things will build up in your body. It might take years to make you sick as they build up, but it's pretty much inevitable (unlike Cyanide, Fluoride, or even table salt, which will either make you sick pretty much right away if you eat enough, or not at all if you consume under the threshold your body can deal with- most of it is gone after 12 hours).

"Safe" levels of Lead, Mercury, and Arsenic are basically the levels at which, over your entire life, you wouldn't eat enough to make you really sick. But really, the ideal level of lead and mercury is NO lead and mercury. Unfortunately, the stuff is everywhere, and in all of our food, so we just have to go with the lowest levels we can realistically get.

With something like Fluoride on the other hand, the dangerous daily level is that which is in excess of what our bodies can get rid of in one day. That safe number turns out to be about 10 mg/day, for an adult (because our bodies are larger), or a little less than 1 mg/day for an infant - which means drinking more than ten liters of water every day to pose any health risk (or a liter for an infant).

I can't drink ten liters of water a day. At that point, the amount of water itself would be dangerous (depletion of electrolytes).

But Tea is also very high in fluoride. Tea actually has 4.6 times the amount of fluoride in tap water.

You'd only need to drink 2.17 liters of tea a day to get too much fluoride. That's very possible (and more worrying).

And if you made tea with fluoridated tap water, then you'd only need to drink 1.8 liters (not a big difference, but it adds up).

I don't think very many people drink that much, but it is possible, and that would be a concern. However, it's more so the tea than the tap water that is at issue.

Seafood also has a lot of fluoride in it- so if you're drinking a lot of tea and eating a lot of fish *cough* Japan *cough* you might be getting enough fluoride to experience mild symptoms.

Fluoride is just not even on the radar as a potentially dangerous substance for most people, least of all the small amount added to tap water.

Now, if you want to criticize tap water fluoridation as a waste of money - since most of it goes down the toilet, shower drains, or out with laundry and dish water - that's totally reasonable. It's why a lot of countries add it to table salt instead- which is actually consumed, though even that may not be ideal.

IMO it should probably just be mandated as an addition to sweet drinks (like softdrinks and juice) and left out of tap water where it serves little purpose (the people drinking a lot of tap water aren't usually the ones that tend to get the most cavities). Put the dental protective salt in things that threaten dental health, so people are medicated proportionally to their actual needs.

But, that's another topic on government/infrastructure waste. I think it's a little bit insane that we flush our toilets with drinkable water. Frankly, it's insane that we flush our toilets at all rather than having composting systems, which would be so much cheaper and cleaner than maintaining blackwater sewer infrastructure.

There's so much to criticize the government for in terms of its spending, we don't need to make up dangers that don't exist.

[PrincessPeach]

Well brimstone, you've really set my ass straight on fluoride and I thank you for that!
I was substituting my breast milk with about 3 10oz bottles a day, that is almost a liter a day!
What I am really interested in hearing more about is the bioaccumulation of different toxicants, I would not know where to start.

I took a step back when you said that I was giving vegan's a bad name, and I thought about how an outsider would really think about my diet or even my intake on water, and you are right they probably would perceive me as a 'moonbat' like you stated, that is not good for the movement at all..

I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to inform on all the details of the matter, I was unaware of the bioaccumulation process & would like to learn more...
I do not want to be seen as the crazy vegan 'moonbat', I would much rather be educated on the matters but; I'm no scientist just a nerd .

[brimstoneSalad]

No problem. I'll try to give you a breakdown or the major stuff.

Pretty much anything you read as a comprehensive investigation of the toxicity of any substance will include two things:

1. How Toxic it is in X amount administered instantly (like the LD50)

2. How the body handles it, which is more complicated, and tends to include:
__A. How or if it's absorbed (something that be the most toxic thing on Earth, if your body doesn't absorb it, it's harmless)
__B. What your body metabolizes it into (if it's metabolized) - some things are harmless, but your body metabolizes them into something toxic (tricky), some things are harmful, but your body instantly and metabolizes them into something harmless (making the thing itself harmless UNLESS your have a genetic defect, or other problem which prevents you from metabolizing it -- this is where a lot of intolerances come from.
__C. How, or if, and at what rate it's removed from your body. Water soluble things are almost always removed pretty quickly. LIPID soluble (fat soluble) things tend to build up more in your tissue. Heavy metals are a special class of thing that are basically stored up in your organs indefinitely, and which your body has no way to remove (so they build up to dangerous levels). Some vitamins, like heavy metals, can't be removed either so they can build up to dangerous levels.

Many things are more toxic than lead, but they're just not absorbed much, or they're quickly metabolized into harmless things or removed from the body.

Now, if your liver is doing the job of metabolizing them (like alcohol) consuming too much (faster than your liver can heal) can damage your liver and basically kill it.
If your kidneys are removing it, you can damage your kidneys, or in some cases where the substance can precipitate (that is, fall out of the water solution and become an undissolved solid) it may form stones, which can be uncomfortable to say the least (but not life threatening today).

So, it's good to know how it's being metabolized or removed, and to understand some of the additional effects that could have.

Our livers are pretty good at metabolizing a bunch of things, and as long as you don't overdo it, they're perfectly happy to keep soldiering on. None-the-less, it's nice to go easy on them.

Stones are a painful, but less serious issue (that is, not usually life threatening, or dangerous to your long term health in first would countries). If you don't have any history with them, I'd basically say don't worry about it unless something you're eating a lot of is known to cause them (like Oxalates in Spinach). If you have stones, you'll definitely find out about it, and doctors can take care of that.


There's also a NEW thing we're starting to research, which is;

__D. Microorganisms in your intestines might metabolize something otherwise harmless into something dangerous which can then be absorbed into your body. We're finding that this is the case for a lot of substances in meat that are otherwise harmless. It may be true of other things too.

And with that one, we've pretty much covered every way something can be dangerous or not.


If you find a "source" which only talks about toxicity from a direct, single time exposure (like LD50), it's probably not an honest source, because that kind of data is only a very very tiny part of the whole picture, and very easily deceptive.

Most alternative health claims are basically relying on this kind of deceptive practice- giving you a tiny piece of information, but leaving out all of the context.

Anti-Vaccination, Anti-GMO, and Organic food are all along the same lines. They present a very small part of the picture, exaggerating or outright fabricating hypothetical dangers, but ignoring very real proven dangers on the other side (deadly diseases which vaccines keep at bay, mass starvation which conventional crops can't prevent, more dangerous "Organic" pesticides and manure).

If the anti-vaccination movement keeps growing, we're going to see even more resurgence of once eradicated diseases, and those diseases could mutate and create a new pandemic. Next to animal agriculture, this may be the greatest biological threat to human life in the world today, followed distantly by bio-terrorism (which is bizarrely the only thing most people worry about, despite terrorists being incompetent).

Anti-GMO rhetoric is responsible for much of the starvation in Africa. We don't see that hit home, because we can afford to waste money and resources on low yield crops. But our misinformation is directly feeding into increasing global fear of otherwise harmless food, leading to starvation and war in the developing world. The problem with GMO is the long patents; the monopoly and ownership of genes themselves, and the bad business practices of the companies who own and defend those patents, not the technology or the plants themselves.

I'm becoming increasingly concerned about the dangers of organic food. They use "natural" pesticides, but that doesn't mean they're safe- some of them are significantly more dangerous than synthetic ones, and they're being used in enormous and poorly or completely unregulated amounts. And I'm also concerned about the extensive use of manure in fertilization (which is subsidizing the factory farm industry, and introducing all kinds of pathogens and other unknown substances into the soil).

Just as an example of some more complete pictures.

[PrincessPeach]

Brimstone I am blown away again!
This is my concern with vaccines the high amounts of mercury and aluminum, have you seen the vaccine calander of how many shot's they want to give your little one all while under the age of two?
This is my 'hypothesis' I don't even know if I'm using that word right but; signs of autism present themselves during the first two years of life, mercury poisoning 'mimics' the signs of autism, aluminum helps absorb mercury ~ why don't we mandate giving the vaccines after the age of two ~ when the body is grown and the liver can 'detoxify' itself from the high amounts of mercurcy and aluminum found in the vaccines that they want to be injected into your littles one new born body new born liver... I bet autism rates would go down if we waited until our children are over the age of 2 to give them vaccines, and the rate at which vaccines are given.

[brimstoneSalad]

This is my concern with vaccines the high amounts of mercury and aluminum,

Mercury is a component of a preservative called Thimerosal. It was actually used in such incredibly small amounts (and just given that one time) that it wasn't a health risk even for young children.

And I say was, because it hasn't really been routinely used (except in flu shots) since 2001:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concer ... index.html

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines and other products since the 1930's. There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. However, in July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure.

Since 2001, with the exception of some influenza (flu) vaccines, thimerosal is not used as a preservative in routinely recommended childhood vaccines.

It's nice that they removed it, just in case. If given the choice, I'd take the vaccine without it too. An example of government being very cautious about human health.

The FDA has a more informative article, which also goes into dosage and reasons:

http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccin ... /UCM096228

Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine (see Table 1). A preservative-free version of the inactivated influenza vaccine (contains trace amounts of thimerosal) is available in limited supply at this time for use in infants, children and pregnant women. Some vaccines such as Td, which is indicated for older children (≥ 7 years of age) and adults, are also now available in formulations that are free of thimerosal or contain only trace amounts. Vaccines with trace amounts of thimerosal contain 1 microgram or less of mercury per dose.

So, you can even get a flu vaccine without Thimerosal for young children and if you're pregnant. And probably if you aren't too, but doctors and clinics have a limited supply (since Thimerosal free flu shots have to be individually packaged for a single dose).

I bolded an important point: that the vaccines that contain it contain less than a microgram of mercury.

You can compare this to the amount of mercury in foods (mercury is, after all, everywhere, so the important question is the amount of it).

That's like five grams (sometimes less) of fish.
Or what you would get from non-fish foods in about four days just by eating food that grew on Earth.
It's the amount you get by breathing for a month.

It's not ideal, of course, but it's comparable to normal exposure levels when you consider the actual amount.

But that's aside from the point as it applies to young children, because those vaccines haven't contained mercury for over a decade.


Aluminum is the same kind of deal as mercury- very small amounts compared to normal exposure. In this case, Aluminum is in fractions of a mg instead of mcg, but aluminum is also the third most abundant material on the Earth's surface (over 8% of the crust)- it's in everything, and in pretty large amounts.

4.225 mg is the maximum exposure from vaccines in the first year of life, while tolerable intake from diet is more than 40 times that amount for an infant's body weight over that year.

have you seen the vaccine calander of how many shot's they want to give your little one all while under the age of two?

They do it as soon as possible to protect them from deadly diseases.

signs of autism present themselves during the first two years of life, mercury poisoning 'mimics' the signs of autism, aluminum helps absorb mercury ~ why don't we mandate giving the vaccines after the age of two ~ when the body is grown and the liver can 'detoxify' itself from the high amounts of mercurcy and aluminum found in the vaccines that they want to be injected into your littles one new born body new born liver...

Because there's no mercury in those vaccines, and the levels of aluminum are actually pretty low, and because aluminum is ubiquitous, even infants are capable of handling a little bit of it. They're getting much more from the diet than from the vaccines.

Because there's every reason to believe the vaccines are harmless (outside of minor reactions at the injection site), and they protect against deadly diseases which the infant is even more vulnerable to, they are given as soon as possible (before the child starts interacting with other kids).

I bet autism rates would go down if we waited until our children are over the age of 2 to give them vaccines, and the rate at which vaccines are given.

They wouldn't. There's not any correlation between autism and vaccination- autism levels are the same in vaccinated and un-vaccinated children.
Levels of deadly diseases (which can lead to lifelong disability even if the child survives) however, are much higher in un-vaccinated children.

[Neptual]

Almost forgot watch this video too http://youtu.be/RzRn3VxHUAk